Risk Assessment and the Tragedy of Ayeesha Smith and Other Children

The news this week that another toddler has been murdered by her mother brings yet another reminder that when it comes to child protection in the UK, we haven’t got it right yet. Ayeesha Smith, who died at the hands or should we say feet of her mother, who stamped on her with such violence that her injuries were likened to having been in a car crash. She was 21 months old. The toddler had been in foster care but was returned to her mother with tragic consequences. Like other toddlers gone before her, Ayeesha Smith is testament to the institutionalised failures that leave vulnerable children at the mercy of mothers who cannot cope. Whilst natural fathers are simply disregarded in almost all cases, becoming helpless bystanders and witness to the risk that their child lives in but unable to help them. Ayeesha Smith’s father, like others before him, raised…